Hi BiggerPockets Team,

I am looking for some advice as I am new to real estate. I am receiving a promotion at work that will keep me in the Houston region for at least two to three years. Knowing that I will be within the market for some time I believe it makes a lot of sense to go from a renter to a first-time homeowner. I am looking for a property 2Bed2Bath/3Bed2Bath because I would like to take advantage of having extra rooms. I have more than a handful of friends in the region who would be interested in renting a bedroom ($500 - $650 range). I have a guarantee of one roommate for $500 - $600 depending of course on the property and space. I believe house hacking would be a great introduction into real estate.

Our jobs (mine, my wife, potential roommates) are in the Med Center as well as the University of Houston so being in the inner loop is crucial to the location of the property. I have been prioritizing Midtown, Rice Military, Heights basically anything West of downtown and North of 69. We all currently rent in these different pockets of the city and would like to stay within the area.

However, I am concerned that my cashflow math shows that these areas don't work from a buy and rent perspective. One issue is the price points are too high in comparison to what rent typically goes for in the area (I'm sure that's no surprise to you vets). Another issue is a large majority of the properties have an HOA fee and I am having difficulty on assessing the appropriate dollar amounts for CAPex, Maintenance, Insurance, etc. with the property being a condo. I know that the HOA will decrease my cash flow as a fixed cost, but I am not sure what the correct decrease should be to my other expenditures due to having an HOA.

I don't expect the property to become a full out rental until 2-3 years from now and due to this I am not sure how to appropriately approach the cash flow math. After 2 – 3 years there will be opportunity to refinance/ remove the PMI payments and these two items should lead to better/positive cash flow. But I am having challenges with the math and truly assessing if a property 2-3 years from now after paying down some of the mortgage will be a solid rental investment.

Some more info, I have a budget of $350K and can put down ~10%. I would love some feedback on my situation from a more experienced member of the community. Is there opportunity to take advantage of a house hack with the parameters (budget/location) I have in place? Please reach out if I should provide more clarifying details.

Thanks for your help!

Houston, Texas

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